...In the black community, just like the country crowd is made up
offormer rockers, blues was always the music that older black folks
turnedto when they were too old to relate to soul music. In past decades
therewas always a parallel black audience for the blues that was just
outsidepublic sight: Bobby Rush, Willie Clayton, Denise LaSalle, Johnnie
Taylor.Sometime during the eighties, this kind of blues, more soul-orientedthan anything you'll hear in the North Side clubs, was eased off
the blackstations—by this decade, you heard it mainly on specialty programs(like Mr. A's late-night show on the otherwise
classical
WNIB-FM),or on a station like WSSD-FM, which plays soul-blues all day, butat 88.1 on the dial can only be heard on the South Side...

Mr. A

[Photo taken in the WNIB Control Room]

=
=
= =
=
= =
=
= =
=
= =

This notice was part of Robert Feder's TV & Radio Column in
the Chicago Sun-Times on November 2, 2004.

Dialing: Fans Mourn Mr. A

Chicago blues fans are mourning the loss of Alfred
Hudgins,
who was known to generations of radio listeners over more than three
decades
as the legendary Mr. A. Mr. Hudgins, who was 75, died last week
in
Crestwood after a battle with cancer. Best known for his
long-running
overnight blues show on the former WNIB before it was sold in 2001, he
most recently hosted a Saturday and Sunday morning blues show on
WNDZ-AM
(750). He signed off for health reasons last year. Services
will be at noon Saturday at Gatling's Chapel, 10133 S. Halsted.